Perhaps Ts don’t have much in common with particular LGBs. This is why I prefer the more political notion of queer community. Queer in this context is about anti-essentialist identities and a broad spectrum of sexual and gender non-conformity. You can understand queer by juxtaposing it to compulsory hetero-normativity. And in terms of our politics, then we can see what Ts have in common with other queer folk. Queerness was born out of the very constraints of LGBTs or sexual identity in the first place. Go read some Foucault.

Let's all remember that conservative homophobes, more than anyone, are supremely confident that gay people and transgendered people are one and the same.

Gay men are despised because any man who would want to have sex with another man must deep down really want to be a woman, right? And any woman who wants to have sex with another woman must want to be a man.

Lumping gay people and transgendered people together, as if we have anything to do with each other, reinforces all these common stereotypes.

Oh, and while we're at it, why don't we suspend all attempts at passing gay rights legislation until every illegal alien has a driver's license? We wouldn't want to throw them under the bus, would we?

...which surprises me, given that the exact same arguments have also been used against them, too. After all, the argument goes, bisexuals have the advantages of heterosexual privilege. In it's worse case, the argument against bisexual inclusion in the big tent becomes one of legitimacy -- bisexuals aren't "real" queers, are in denial, are unwilling to commit to the movement, etc.

15 years ago I heard those arguments used regularly to justify downplaying bisexual inclusion. Only the names have been changed in the transgendered inclusion debate.

Jen Gaboury and Mireille C are the epitome of the worst of the Politically Correct Professional Homosexual mindset. I'm not a good "progressive liberal" because I don't parrot the party line on this issue and John is advised to read Foucault and embrace "Queerism."

The common thread amongst every single person disagreeing with this piece is there is one ideology and one school-of-thought on this issue. If you're a member of the GLB community and if you don't mindlessly repeat and follow that ideology you're not a "good gay."

As a community which values "diversity" I'm not seeing a lot of respect here for John's alternate POV. The fact is that by urging a defeat on a non-gender identity inclusive ENDA the transsexual community and its allies in the Beltway ARE making common cause with our enemies. Those enemies want to see ENDA defeated and they don't much care HOW that defeat occurs.

All the most extreme right-wing organizations must be laughing themselves silly at how the gays turn on each other, sabotage legislation designed to protect the GLB community and essentially do the right's work for them. I bet the leaders of those organizations are shaking their heads in wonder that the transsexuals accomplished their mission for them. I bet they never thought they would live to see the day - I know I didn't.

Yes, I should value the diversity in the LGBT community... Including how divers our civil rights will be when you leave us behind! Asking others to respect your rights sure makes us fascists. The right is laughing because they can watch people who are trying to achieve equal rights turn around and suppress another group altogether. Oppressing others always makes dealing with your own oppression easier. Pathetic.

"A lot of gays have been scratching their heads for 10 years trying to figure out what they have in common with transsexuals, or at the very least why transgendered people qualify as our siblings rather than our cousins."

Try this: "First they came for...." You know how that one ends.

Now "they" are finally starting to get over you, but voila! They have an even stranger and more vulnerable, and less visible--therefore easier to ridicule and dehumanize to the ignorant--population to kick around and call an abomination.

And can't we stop wondering why *people*, any people, have to "qualify" as anything? Other than able to do their jobs, that is.

As a gay man, you have to wonder why all of us who have ever struggled for survival/acceptance/security among the fearful and often violent majority should stand with anyone who's shared that battle, just on a different front?

Anyone who has, and/or who stands up to protect liberty, protection under the law, and the right to earn a living for anyone else, qualifies as my sibling. How's that?

All that said, I reluctantly support passage of ENDA without the T. Your sections on how cultural conservatives have managed the campaign of fear and hate that they have were brilliant and clarifying. Yes, passage of this, in any substantial form (but not an empty, toothless one, as you say), would put this nation on notice that this is the direction things are going from now on.

But you're awfully ready to say that since gays don't understand the transgendered and what they have to do with your human rights, employers and legislators don't need to, either.

They need to. Right now. But they won't, so I'm all up for taking what we *can* get right now.

There's a poem by Karen Finley called "The Black Sheep" which explains more simply and elegantly than I can what in the world we all have to do with each other.

The gay and lesbian community in the early 90s never really wanted to put B or T on the posters for Pride parades. So we jumped in and volunteered our cute little asses off to make Pride parades even better. And so we got to put our initials on the banners. We stepped up and put our 'queer shoulders to the wheel.'

The queer community needs our muscle. I certainly won't apologize for taking a little power.

Wow Mireille. In case you weren't aware the right doesn't really by into the liberation theology ethic your trumpeting here. And I just cannot understand how not extending protections based on gender identity in employment means the transsexual community is being "oppressed." This victimization language is really quite unappealing but I understand it may be all you have to hold onto, since your argument doesn't hold any water.

And I love Firefly's quote: "Try this: "First they came for...." You know how that one ends." You know how this is going to end? We're talking about EXTENDING protections to a group, not stripping them of protections and shipping them off to camps. As a Jewish man I find using the language of the Holocaust to describe a completely unrelated issue to be highly offensive. You are familiar that with the rule in debate that the first person to mention the holocaust automatically loses - right? You lose.